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“Please note, the results of this will determine the course of your entire semester,” the professor says, while holding out a cardboard box full of paper names.
John hopes he doesn’t visibly pale.
He’d never had much luck - ever, really.
With anything.
So naturally, luck-based matters such as pulling your chemistry lab partner out of a hat seemed to always end poorly.
He tentatively sticks his hand into the box, does his best not to linger too long despite the nervous tension in his chest, and draws out a name.
The professor keeps walking, holding out the box to the next person down the line.
The paper sits innocently in the palm of his hand, and he almost wants to scowl at it.
Screw the anxiety. Better to get it over with, right?
He unfolds the paper viciously, practically tearing it in the process.
Eurasian Blackcap, the paper reads.
Ehm.
What?
Is that a name?
“Right, go about the room, find those with your animal - and no, you can’t just call out the name of the animal at the top of your lungs, Jameson. ”
Ah. Not a name, then.
John can only feel sorry for that poor Jameson bloke, even as he tentatively stands from his seat and abandons his backpack in favor of looking about the room.
There’s someone standing five inches to his right.
He startles.
The man’s eyes are piercing, sharp and calculating and - bollocks, he’s tall.
And lanky.
And he’s staring.
“It’s a type of bird,” The man says.
Watson startles again. Ah, he’s being spoken to. “What?”
“The Eurasian Blackcap,” the man replies, simply. “A remarkable little bird that traverses great distances during its annual migration. They play an essential role in seed dispersal, aiding in the propagation of plant species. They also contribute to insect population control, as they feed on various arthropods.”
Watson’s Eurasian Blackcap paper stays crumpled in the palm of his left hand, as it had been for the past several minutes, since he’d stood up.
So how-?
“You - what?”
“Sherlock Holmes - and you are John Watson. You appeared puzzled at the paper you’d received. Though most students in this room drew names such as cat, dog, or baboon, of all things - you drew a peculiarly named paper, one unlike the others. One like mine,” Sherlock says, holding out his hand. There’s a perfectly smooth piece of paper in his palm.
Eurasian Blackcap, it reads.
Ah.
Well then.
That’s just - erm, that’s lovely.
“We ought to exchange socials, so we can coordinate the submission of labs once they’ve been completed and compile notes.”
“Right. Yes, of course,” John manages, though it’s almost a choke.
He’s not sure what to make of - well, any of this.
-
“We begin with a one hundred twenty-five milliliter Erlenmeyer flask,” Sherlock says, his goggles secured over his eyes, blue gloves pulled over his hands, a long white lab coat falling below his knees.
John finds himself in similar attire - a little much, for what’s just going to be boiling water and playing around with bunsen burners, but he’s not about to complain.
“The lab instructions say to use deionized water,” John says, reaching for the four-hundred milliliter beaker they’ll be boiling the Erlenmyer flask in.
Sherlock narrows his eyes, moves the beaker out of his reach, and repeats his previous statement. “We begin with a one hundred twenty-five milliliter Erlenmeyer flask. Here. Ensure the rubber stopper only has one hole,” he says, and pushes the flask into John’s hands.
There’a rubber stopper in the top of it. It does, in fact, only have one hole - which a simple glance would have proven.
Something in John’s heart shrivels slightly. A touch of irritation.
Sherlock is setting up their bunsen burner, connecting the hose securely and moving it under their ring stand.
“There’s only one hole,” John says firmly, setting the flask down on the counter. “I’ll go get the DI water.”
Sherlock doesn’t even spare him a glance as he collects the moved beaker and makes his way to the corner of the lab.
There’s a line of students waiting to fill their beakers as well, and only one large jug of deionized water, so John gets in line.
They’re all talking about stoichiometry and atomic structure and optical isomerism and John feels like his head might explode out of anxiety by the time he’s done with it all - he should’ve paid more attention in the previous class.
When he gets back, Sherlock is attaching their Erlenmeyer flask to a clamp. “Have you brought the water?” he asks, as if by some stretch of the imagination John had left, mucked about for five minutes, and then come back with an empty beaker.
“Yeah, mate,” John replies, voice sharp.
And, despite his seemingly unending perceptive abilities, Sherlock doesn’t seem to notice his frustration. “Very well, set it over the wire gauze, there.”
Their iron rings have been attached to the stand for burning, a piece of wire gauze set over the bottom ring. Carefully, John slips the beaker inside the rings, setting it atop the wire gauze.
And Sherlock is fiddling around with a white jar of tiny beads - rock-looking things, really.
John’s curiosity gets the better of him. “What’re those?”
Sherlock fixes him with a sharp look.
His eyes are narrowed and oddly bright for the eyebags just below them - but, in that moment, John realizes - the look isn’t a judgmental one. It’s just - the way he is.
He just looks very - intense. Always. With the eyebags, and the tight bun atop his head, and the way he always looks so calculating.
And, as much as John wants to feel off put, or unsettled - he just feels…interested. Fascinated. The irritation from before slips away as if it had never existed.
“They’re Boilizers,” Sherlock explains, and for the first time, John can recognize the lack of malice behind it - just a profound bluntness. “They help the water boil swifter and more vigorously, so we don’t spend an hour on each of the four different procedures of boiling and cooling for this lab.”
“Ah,” John says, nodding, but Sherlock’s already moving on.
“We’ll now attach the clamp with the Erlenmeyer flask to our iron stand, until the entirety of the flask up to the neck is submerged in our beaker’s deionized water.” Sherlock says, explaining every step as he does it.
“And Boilizers,” John adds.
“Quite right.”
“Looks like now we’re meant to just - turn on the burner and let it, eh, go at it, I guess, until it boils. And then we let it boil for five minutes, after that.”
Sherlock nods vigorously. Several strands of curly hair fall from the back of his bun. “Mmm, yes. We’ll need a metal pan full of cool tap water.”
“Right, I’ll go find one.”
They quickly discover the metal pans suck (they begin leaking water all over their clean countertop).
Sherlock looks about ready to pop by their fourth pan in - which yet again begins leaking onto his notebook, despite John’s best efforts to pad the space with paper towels.
Sherlock had criticized their flammability.
“Can’t really set on fire if they’re soaking wet, mate,” John had replied.
Meanwhile, their beaker, still settled over the Bunsen burner, is beginning to boil.
Sherlock hurries to set a five minute timer, leaving John to solve the problem of their leaking water pan. John brings more paper towels.
Five minutes later, Sherlock’s turning off the Bunsen burner, and John is carefully unscrewing the flask’s clamp from their iron stand.
“Place your finger over the hole in the stopper while you transfer the flask to the pan of water,” Sherlock instructs, watching carefully. “Then, immerse the flask with the stopper-end pointing downward.”
John nods, trying to focus on not burning himself with a glass flask that had been boiled seconds prior. “Won’t it shatter? Hot glass to cool water, and all?”
“Not this glass,” Sherlock says.
Ah. alright then.
Carefully, he follows Sherlock’s instructions, keeping the hole at the top of the stopper covered until the flask is submerged.
Water seeps in through the hole. He narrows his eyes. “Is it meant to do that?”
Sherlock fixes him with another sharp look, and nods. “Water will enter the flask, and we will measure it using our graduated cylinder.”
“Ah. Well, we’ve got ten minutes to wait.”
“You can set the handle of the clamp against the side of the pan to keep it upright - no sense in needlessly holding it there.”
“Oh. Right. Thank you.”
Sherlock is setting a timer.
John is sinking into his swivel chair - something he was profoundly glad this class’s lab provided.
His last chemistry class hadn’t, and he’d been ready to fall over by the end of each one.
“You’re favoring your right leg,” Sherlock remarks, still staring down at his phone. The timer’s already going, so - he’s just not making eye contact. “Why?”
A beat of quiet.
“Bad accident, innit?” John says, after a moment. “Drunk driver, poorly timed ditch, explosion-prone engine - makes for a good bomb, really.”
Sherlock says nothing. He’s staring at their cooling Erlenmeyer flask.
“Anyway. That was years ago.”
There’s a beat of silence.
Then, finally, Sherlock speaks. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he says, as bluntly as everything else.
John startles.
“Your father,” Sherlock clarifies, unnecessarily. It had been clear.
Horribly, profoundly clear.
They sit in silence for several minutes.
John is too caught off guard to say anything, trying to formulate some form of response. Because what do you say to that?
Meanwhile, Sherlock has removed their flask from the leaking water pan and is recording the temperature of the water. Their alarm is going off.
It’s beeping, buzzing, repetitive.
The car alarm blaring, loud and obnoxious and present even over the sound of crunching metal framing.
His seat belt digs into his chest. “Dad,”
There is no response. There would never be another response ever again.
“Dad!”
“Watson,” Sherlock is saying, peering as intently at him as he might their lab experiment. “Chemistry lab.”
Right. Yes. In the lab, in chemistry, focusing on - this. The - water, and volumes, and not cars exploding or anything of the sort.
“The flask contains water that entered when the volume of the air decreased. We will use a graduated cylinder to measure the volume of the water that entered the flask to record this volume,” Sherlock explains, as he retrieves a graduated cylinder, sets it on the countertop, removes the stopper on the top of their flask, and - hesitates.
Then, he looks back at John.
After a moment of contemplation, he’s holding out the flask, a look on his face John can’t decipher. “You should participate more in this experiment.”
It’s phrased in what could be interpreted as accusative - but from what he’s learnt of Sherlock in their past several labs, John has collected that he would gladly do the entire experiment by himself.
So by suggesting John participate more, he’s not - accusatory, no.
He’s trying to include John in it all.
John smiles, takes the offered Erlenmeyer flask, and pours the water into their graduated cylinder.
“Ah,” he says, resting his chin on the countertop to get a level look at the meniscus in the water. “Twenty-one point eight?”
“Twenty-one point seven nine,” Sherlock suggests.
John nods.
Sherlock takes notes.
They perform a second trial.
This time, after boiling the flask, they set it into ice-water, which is marginally worse than the cool water.
John's fingers are freezing by the time the flask has been properly submerged.
Sherlock collects his hands, holds them for several moments, talks about circulation until the alarm goes off to remove it from the water.
John struggles to wrap his mind around such a curious person. Profoundly intelligent, at least as far as chemistry goes, acutely aware of his surroundings and the people in them - and yet, failing all of his classes but two, as it would seem.
His jaw had practically dropped when Sherlock had mentioned it.
Even now, Sherlock moves through the steps of their lab perfectly, walking him through recording the temperature of the air and full volume of their Erlenmeyer flask as if he had the lab’s instruction sheet in front of him.
He didn’t.
A plan formulates in his mind as they complete the lab, Sherlock bent over his notebook as he marks down the calculations for their graph of absolute zero, slope of the line of volume and temperature, and their percent error.
It’s near zero.
Sherlock seems thrilled by such a small margin of error, and clarifies the fact they likely would never have reached an exact perfect answer in their first run when so many steps were required.
John washes their used supplies, Sherlock dries them and sets them perfectly back as they were found.
“Have you considered using a cane?” Sherlock suggests, as they’re taking off their lab PPE.
John nods. “I have, I just - well, I can walk fine most of the time. It’s just - lots of standing up, or running - more extensive stuff, really, that sets off any discomfort. And even then, it’s not so bad I can’t walk without falling over, or anything. It’s just - pain.”
Sherlock’s left eye twitches. It’s the only hint of a reply John gets, and then they’re moving on, shrugging on their backpacks, saying goodbye to the professor - at least John is - and leaving the lab.
They’re the first ones out.
“Have you considered getting a tutor?” John suggests, as they’re waiting for the elevator (even despite John’s profound awareness of Sherlock’s penchant to take only the stairs, always, without fail).
Sherlock’s entire face wrinkles in disgust. “I would rather plunge myself into the wormhole of the unexplained.”
“You said you’re failing all of your classes.”
“Not chemistry or psychology.”
“And the others?”
“Watson, I don’t get those things. If I am unable to rationally wrap my mind around the topics they cover - why would I do so any better under the tutelage of one who will take my inability to understand as a lack of overall intelligence and drive?” Sherlock huffs, jamming the button to the elevator with a knuckle.
“I wouldn’t, mate,” John breathes, with a tilt of his head.
Sherlock hesitates, for the second time that day.
It’s a sight to behold, catching him off guard.
The elevator door opens.
Sherlock just stares.
John steps into the elevator, resisting the urge to pull Sherlock with him. Instead, he just repeatedly presses the door open button. “I’m not as great at maths as I am at writing, but I’m not failing either. I could at least help, mate.”
A beat, and then Sherlock’s stepping into the elevator with him. “Very well.”
And nothing else.
Just - that. Agreement.
No attempt to clarify his inability to understand, no disagreement as to John’s tutoring capabilities - just. Very well.
John will never not be caught off guard by Sherlock.
He presses the button to the ground floor.
-
Over the next several weeks, John and Sherlock establish a routine.
They meet up in the library - quiet enough for Sherlock to focus, yet still enough of a study space to promote the right mindset - and John patiently explains concepts and helps Sherlock with his coursework.
And - it’s slow, at first. Sherlock remarks on the foolishness of it all more than once - but over time, as they continue to work together, John begins to understand Sherlock’s unique way of thinking.
Sherlock has a profound ability to absorb information quickly. Despite this, he favors and processes certain subjects over others - the information from those topics easier to absorb than others.
But his intelligence is not limited to chemistry or psychology -- it extends to his keen observations and deductions about the world around him.
So John attempts to put the coursework from each of his coming exams into a more interactive format. He quickly finds, in the subjects Sherlock struggles in, he learns best from visual and kinesthetic methods of learning, over trying to consume large blocks of text.
So he reformats the study guides, setting them up in a way Sherlock could see them as more of an engaging task to solve, rather than a frustrating problem purposefully written in a way he wouldn’t be able to understand.
And gradually, Sherlock’s grades begin to improve.
Granted, John’s slip some, as he’s spending far more time with Sherlock than his own studying - until Sherlock gives him a schedule, worked out in a way that properly maximizes the time in his day.
It’s hard to stick to, and John definitely misses some things some days - but mainly, it’s a helpful guide to follow to help manage his time better.
And their tutoring sessions turn into more than just - tutoring sessions. John and Sherlock grow closer, become friends, realize how horribly they compliment each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
It’s frightening, to everyone around them.
It’s incredibly thrilling to Sherlock, and reassuring to John.
And when the semester is over, and they both pass all of their classes - and John gets an A in chemistry, thank god - they’re both so proud.
Of themselves, of each other.
Even if Sherlock doesn’t show it as visibly.
“When registration opens,” Sherlock says, as they’re walking from their dorms to the parking lot - they’ll be heading home for spring break. “I’ll text you the CRN for our next chemistry course.”
“You want to be in the same class again?”
Sherlock gives him a sharp look - and this one… this one is reprimanding. “Of course,” he says, as if it’s entirely evident. “Though it’s unlikely we’ll be lab partners, again, due to the random nature of the drawing.”
John frowns. “I’ll forge Eurasian Blackcap papers.”
“That will never work.”
“It could, you never know.”
“It wouldn’t.”
“ Fine then,” John huffs, and shrugs his backpack off.
They’ve come to the split in the parking lot - John’s car parked on one side, Sherlock’s on the other.
“Right. Goodbye, John,” Sherlock says, and without much more than that, turns to his side of the road.
John startles, again, forever again. He will never not be caught off guard by this man. “Yeah, you too. I mean, see you next semester, yeah? Drive safe.”
“I will.”
-
The next semester, they draw names out of a box.
True to his word, John doesn’t rig the vote, or attempt to.
And now, the box is in front of him, and he draws out a name.
The professor keeps walking, holding out the box to the next person down the line.
The paper sits innocently in the palm of his hand, and he almost wants to scowl at it.
Screw the anxiety. Better to get it over with, right?
He unfolds the paper viciously, practically tearing it in the process.
Bluejay, the paper reads.
Ehm.
“Right, go about the room, find those with your animal, ” the professor says.
John shifts in his seat.
Sherlock is reading over his shoulder, from his spot in the seat to John’s right.
Then, he’s smiling, a real, wide grin that could, quite possibly, be even more striking than his eyes.
He holds up his own paper.
One word.
Bluejay.
John could’ve strangled him then and there. His voice is a hoarse whisper when he speaks. “You rigged it?”
Sherlock’s smile widens, and he looks away. “Forgery isn’t your strong suit, John.”
“And it’s yours? ”
“Mmm, quite.”
“Excuse me,” a voice says, to their left.
There’s a woman standing in the row, a piece of paper held in her hand.
Red, circle-framed glasses look down at them.
“Do you - ehm.” A pause, and then she’s holding out her paper.
Bluejay, it reads.
“Ah.” Sherlock breathes. “Unpredictable variable.”
John smiles, pulling out the empty seat to his left, showing her his own Bluejay paper. “I’m John, that’s Sherlock.”
“Nice to meet you both - I’m Mariana.”
“Lovely and jubbly,” John says. “I’m just going to - erhm, preemptively apologize. For the rest of the semester, I mean.”
“Oh.” Mariana says.
“Oh is accurate,” Sherlock huffs.
And Mariana - well, she doesn’t seem to be sure what to make of any of this.